Geology in space

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Volcanoes on Earth have fascinated and terrified people for millennia, extinct volcanoes are seen all over the solar system; on Mars & Mercury and the Moon to name just a few places. Venus and Earth both have active volcanoes on their surface. However, the most volcanically active place in the solar system is Jupiter’s moon Io.

Io is kept volcanically active by the tidal forces of Jupiter and its moons pulling at it, the changes in gravity cause it to flex and bulge which generates heat inside it and causing parts of its to melt. If it was not for this tidal heating then it would no longer be volcanically active, being small and so cooling quickly.

Volcanism on Io, (NASA/JPL/UoA)

Whilst there are some other geological features on Io, such as mountains, there are few impact craters observed, which shows that it has a relatively young surface. It does have many volcanic craters. The volcanoes are dominated by basalt lavas (like those on Hawaii) these can form lava flows which flow over hundreds of kilometres. In addition to this, the volcanoes erupt lava flows of sulphur and sulphur dioxide, The crater-like depressions which are seen on the surface, look a lot like calderas. On Earth, which form when a magma chamber is emptied and a volcano collapse in on itself (it is not known if this same mechanism occurs on Io).

The first evidence of volcanic activity was plumes of material spotted rising above the surface like a fountain. These plumes create a huge amount of material mainly sulphur dioxide which rains back onto the surface.

The highly volcanically active nature of Io means that each year the equivalent of around 1-1.5 cm of material over the whole moon is produced, a staggeringly fast rate of depositing material over a large area in geological terms. This leads to craters on the surface being hidden giving it one of the youngest surfaces of all the bodies in the solar system.

Volcanic plume on Io as seen from Voyager (Nasa/JPL/USGS)

Volcanoes dominate much of the landscape of Io, and perhaps provide some insights into what was happing other bodies in the solar system before the cooled down and became volcanically inactive. It shows how the appearance bodies can be dominated by the external gravitation influence and interaction with of other bodies.